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Martyn Lowery

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Old Haunts

 The park’s not the same.

 He’s remembering a day
 Tipped with flame;
 Neat lawns latticed
 With rioting beds,
 And trees spread
 Like hymnals, green as absinthe,

 Remembering the tight
 Insulation of her hand,
 And that shuddering moment
 As white-capped bowlers
 Eased towards a mid-day beer
 And the municipal flowers

 Lit like beacons. Now they eat
 In a café gone grey and stale,
 Politeness that’s acute
 As cramps between them.
 He’ll try a joke, she’ll smile,
 But the worm’s in there

 And though love’s not dead
 It’s dilute. She wants to stay,
 He wants his kip and childless
 Hour, their compromise
 Grudging as the day’s late sun.
 They walk together, a child

 Between them, thumbing
 The tiny hands like rosary beads;
 And in the breeze-soaked leaves
 Something that rustles
 As they wish themselves,
 This place, long gone.

 

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